Rock Fish Lures or Bait

I am Going to try my hand at rock fishing from my yak for the second time this weekend. Just getting started in the sport and would like to get some advice on what lures to use and or bait. Please help so my wife doesn't laugh at me for not bringing home dinner.

Big hammer swimbaits with a 4oz lead head, you can add a little squid to make it smell good for the fish. Just my 2 cents.


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I am here:

Big Hammers are the Ticket in my experince. any color will do but i like a sardine black&blue, or a pearl, or something with a lil red in it.

Not Gosspel=Just worked for me

Good luck

What size prefered? 4inch 5? just curious

Get the biggest BHs they have and some 4oz and 6oz heads.

It's funny how everyone is on the BH tip now, all of a sudden. I've been using them since Pete gave me some back in '02 or '03.

any swimbait or scampi lure will work for rockies. The size lure will depend on the size fish you want to catch. I like to use 7" swimbaits to keep the little guys off.
shrimp fly rigs with squid will also work well for schoolie fish.

My standard first drop is a big swimbait or scampi on the bottom with something smaller about 2 ft higher.

Big being like 7" with a 4 oz head.  smaller being say 3".

Color, some of the best days I've had come from the drabest brown thing I can find, although I do now start with the 6.6" BH halloween on a 4oz brown head.

If brown seems slow I switch to white. Shiny metal works great too. but tends to cost more.

Actually anything will work if it's heavy enough to allow you to fish at whatever depth you chose, there's nothing worse than not having something heavy enough.

Bottom fish are voracious predators

For many years I used shrimpflies above 4 and 6 ounce leadheads with scampi and swim tails, but I like to mooch chovies now.  Any kind of fish you may want will potentially swallow that chove, and I don't miss many due to barbless hooks.

It would be a bummer to catch a salmon and have to release it (or live with shame!).  Just my two cents worth.   

I go with the same as 9erfan's menu, and alot of line action type rigging using plastics.. or you can also use scampi, works well too. 

Pern

I throw one in there for iron style vertical jigs. I use an assortment of different styles and do OK. The mainthing is matching the lure to the bite. Somedays the fish seem to want a little slower moving live bait while somedays they prefer a baitless jig worked fast.

For someone just starting I would suggest the typical shrimp fly/swimbait rig or straight shrimp fly x2. Unless if your comfortable jigging then I would buy some Braid jigs in various sizes and work them.  Another good rig is a slider rig/carolina style rig with a whole squid pinned on. Match the weight to the drift and find some pinnacles and chances are very good that you will not leave empty handed.         

For many years I used shrimpflies above 4 and 6 ounce leadheads with scampi and swim tails, but I like to mooch chovies now.  Any kind of fish you may want will potentially swallow that chove, and I don't miss many due to barbless hooks.

It would be a bummer to catch a salmon and have to release it (or live with shame!).  Just my two cents worth.   

Eric, what's your preferred setup as far as hooking the anchovies?  Do you thread them on, or lip hook, or...?

Andy

Eric, what's your preferred setup as far as hooking the anchovies?  Do you thread them on, or lip hook, or...?

Andy

They're dead, Andy, so I hook them between the gill plates from below and up through the hard part of skull, wrap around the belly once and pin the back hook through the end of the body before the tail before cinching down the slip rig.  Here's a vid:



Skip to 2:53 if you just want the chovie hooking technique.

I say lures AND bait.  The other day I was out using swimbaits with moderate success.  I managed to hook a greenling and made him into bait by cutting small strips off the side.  I put these strips on the swimbaits and the fishing improved dramatically.

All the rockfish complex fish love to eat kelp greenling........especially ling cod.  Just a little scent of this on your lures increases success.......at least it has for me.

Thanks Eric.  I will look for those 2 hook rigs. 

I think this a great topic.  There are so many lures out there that I think a lot of them catch us fisherman than fish.  Like many people on here I to use the big hammer swim baits.  The browner the better especially when Im shore fishing in the tide pools.  I watch Grassy Rockfish slam these in 1ft of water.  When Im on the kayak I tend to turn to the irons.  In the last 10 outings I have been using butterfly jigs.  Usually 4 - 5 inches in length and about 5 -6 oz.  Hooks on top perferbly. Once I got used to the hooks set which is let them eat it and eat it I started slaying them.  A lot of times I will buy a colar that matches the bait in the water which would be makeral or the chovy.  I have a buddy that owns a tackle shope that custome makes my personal butterfly jigs.  I buy these over Shimanos butterflys anyday due to price and the colars are brighter.  I also love using Blade Runner Squid jigs.  It looks like a squid but the main body is an iron so it can penatrate to the bottom faster then a plastic but the tentickles are plastic and they either run with a trebble hook or single hook.  They have many different sizes.  My favorite is the glow in the dark white 6 oz.  Storm also makes a Hot Rattling Craw Tube that is killer.  Its a smaller plastic but on all the lures I have used I have caught all sizes of fish.  Pink is also a good colar to use as it may resemble krill.  I have a lot pink, makrell colar and brown in my arsonal. 


http://beentherecaughtthat.com/cart/


https://www.charkbait.com/cs/cscBladeRunner.htm